You really think that massive electronic surveillance of the ocean is the answer to this problem?

Good luck with that.

There are about 200 countries operating on this planet and most are contributing to the pollution of the ocean. What's your plan to bring all of them to one mind and to act together?

I am probably more familiar with autonomous vehicle technology than you are. Small underwater drones would be anything but massive. Technoloy is leaping and bounding faster than we can even follow the advances. The capabilities and low cost are stunning. Nothing else, no other technology can approach it for low cost, lack of intrusion or impact and effective information gathering of this type.

Survelliance is a telling word choice,.. why would you say that? Seems to convey suspicion and evil doing. By your definition, would a farmer checking his cows be keeping surveillance on them?

I certainly don't have a plan to bring countries together. I do know that knowledge is better than lack of knowledge in developing policies and acheiving goals. If the goal is to NOT kill aquatic life, then information is the first step in preserving it.

Or we could follow your plan of reviving the ocean after all of humanity is extinct. :-)

I am probably more familiar with autonomous vehicle technology than you are. Small underwater drones would be anything but massive. Technoloy is leaping and bounding faster than we can even follow the advances. The capabilities and low cost are stunning. Nothing else, no other technology can approach it for low cost, lack of intrusion or impact and effective information gathering of this type.

Survelliance is a telling word choice,.. why would you say that? Seems to convey suspicion and evil doing. By your definition, would a farmer checking his cows be keeping surveillance on them?

I certainly don't have a plan to bring countries together. I do know that knowledge is better than lack of knowledge in developing policies and acheiving goals. If the goal is to NOT kill aquatic life, then information is the first step in preserving it.

Or we could follow your plan of reviving the ocean after all of humanity is extinct. :-)

I say surveillance because that was a large part of my job for most of my life, and I probably know a little more about it than you might guess, and that was what we called what you are talking about doing.

I've also worked in foreign countries, for our government, and have seen, firsthand, how hard it is to get cooperation, on the smallest, and most uncontroversial things. If thinking that I will see happen in the future, the same things I have seen happen in the past, makes me a nut, then I am a nut.

Sure G9 the universe will survive without makind too but that isn't relevant or helpful to our conversation about what "we" do in our lifetime and what we experience in our lifetimes with pollution...sea life and coral reefs....etc...

patient

that video is unbelievable. The ending where he says we must change ourselves to imagine a world that isn't about greed and our frantic pursuit of "growth" is very powerful. In many small ways I know I have done that and I think its epitomized by many of the sailors who read and post here. They do not seem greedy, and they surely love the ocean.

If I could just imagine for a moment a partial solution, I could see fleets of underwater drones with cameras and sensors monitoring the ocean floor and the coral reefs and reporting back continuous information, combined with AIS, GPS and global weather data to make a tool for scientists, fisherman and politicians. A plan could be developed to manage, restore and preserve fish populations and habitat.

I want clean oceans and a place for wildlife as much as anyone, maybe not some insane lefties but as much as normal people do. However, the idea of drones roaming the waters (and skies) in their thousands keeping an eye on me and recording everything I do is horrifying to me; especially when those drones are under the control of various humorless"green" do-gooders and faceless government bureaucrats. One of the reasons I sail, one of the reasons I make my living on the sea is the freedom and the need to be self-reliant. I can be monitored and controlled much more efficiently on land. I know that there are drones operating out there now but the idea of Earth First or Greenpeace drones is just creepy.

But I do know this - these wonderful inventions are coming. I was just in a hobby store looking at $500 GoPro Quadcopters that follow you and run the camera. Imagine a snowboarder posting a video of himself doing jumps and shooting down a huge mountain. or a surfer, sailor, whatever... same thing. A sportsman. All footage is by his own personal drone with a Gopro, 360 degree view from 10 feet overhead. Same thing with sailboats, autocross, motorcycles, hikers. You can buy this today, its on the shelf for $500 .. Has built in GPS and alitmeter, links to your Iphone.

Anything can be used for evil, but this amazing technology is coming to you and me to use. Imagine forest fires, emegency responders, surveyors, athletes.... the list is endless.. 90% will be helping us see and look at the world in ways we could have never imagined. Its here. Thats technology coming into your hands. Not politics.

But I do know this - these wonderful inventions are coming. I was just in a hobby store looking at $500 GoPro Quadcopters that follow you and run the camera. Imagine a snowboarder posting a video of himself doing jumps and shooting down a huge mountain. or a surfer, sailor, whatever... same thing. A sportsman. All footage is by his own personal drone with a Gopro, 360 degree view from 10 feet overhead. Same thing with sailboats, autocross, motorcycles, hikers. You can buy this today, its on the shelf for $500 .. Has built in GPS and alitmeter, links to your Iphone.

Anything can be used for evil, but this amazing technology is coming to you and me to use. Imagine forest fires, emegency responders, surveyors, athletes.... the list is endless.. 90% will be helping us see and look at the world in ways we could have never imagined. Its here. Thats technology coming into your hands. Not politics.

That's strict governmental control, political correctness, and tyranny coming to shackle my hands and I won't stand for it.

That's strict governmental control, political correctness, and tyranny coming to shackle my hands and I won't stand for it.

GoPro helicopters are political correctness? I don't know how this conversation went from studying the ocean to tyranny fears.

There is so, so much we don't know about the ocean. Getting little 'bots down there to map and record and study sounds like a great idea. We literally have better maps of the moon than we do of the ocean floor.

Glued those stickers on my boat stipulating how, what and when I can throw out my garbage and pump my head. I would do it all even without the stickers but the need to keep the coasties off my back by having the sticker just fries my butt. Lousy folks are going to do wrong with the stickers in place and good folks won't even with no damn stickers. The stickers made some lawyer feel good so we mar our pretty boats with them. Don't think laws or surveillance change behavior. Think social pressure does. See garbage people dump on the side of the road now my town makes you buy orange plastic bags to put it in to be recycled. New phenomena. Before people recycled at the dump. No garbage roadside seen. See no garbage on the streets in some countries both rich and poor and trash in some U.S. cities all over the streets. If you don't respect yourself you will not respect nature. Still, be good to document and fine the commercial offenders.
Wow that rant felt good

KRYSTLE MARCELLUS / KMARCELLUS@STARADVERTISER.COM
Schmidt Ocean Institute's research vessel, The Falkor, recently arrived at Aloha Tower on Thursday, October 31, 2013.
A stone's throw from Aloha Tower on Thursday, Wendy Schmidt gazed from the stern of her private foundation's research vessel, the Falkor, at the glistening turquoise-blue of Hono*lulu Harbor and pondered the journey ahead.

More ocean study must be done — and it needs to get done a lot more quickly, she said.

Furthermore, those who live thousands of miles from any ocean need to understand how the seas' health affects everyone — not just those who live in coastal areas like Hawaii, she added.

"As the oceans are in peril from many sources, we think this is an urgent mission," said Schmidt, who's the wife of Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt.

She's in town for a private symposium at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel this weekend organized by the couple's science venture, the Schmidt Ocean Institute, that aims to help speed the pace of ocean research. The institute also looks to help fill the void left by dwindling federal research budgets, precisely at a time "when the oceans are under attack" and need study the most, Schmidt said.

The Falkor, meanwhile, is gearing up for a series of expeditions early next year to the Northwestern Hawaiian Island chain.

The Falkor docked in Hono*lulu on Wednesdayand it's the institute's 272-foot-long mobile, globe-trotting headquarters. It was originally built in the early 1980s as a German coast guard ship. But after a $60 million retrofit by the institute — including a science control center room, flat-screen monitors that can display live images of the ocean floor, and even a reading lounge — its high-tech interior now resembles something out of a James Cameron movie.

The Falkor's most recent voyage, from Seattle to Hono*lulu, took it through parts of the so-called Great Pacific garbage patch — a massive swirling vortex of plastic, trash and marine debris in the middle of the sea, largely out of sight from civilization.

GoPro helicopters are political correctness? I don't know how this conversation went from studying the ocean to tyranny fears.

There is so, so much we don't know about the ocean. Getting little 'bots down there to map and record and study sounds like a great idea. We literally have better maps of the moon than we do of the ocean floor.

I think you might be surprised at well we have the ocean floor mapped, although most of that mapping is classified.

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